Peggie in San Ramon, lover of all wild things (within reason)

Can something be done about a guy feeding live chicks to racoons? A friend of a family member raises what he calls free-range chickens, which means they have no shelter and fend for themselves. There is no coop or enclosure, they sleep in trees or bushes at night. He loses many adults to racoons, and keeps hatching new chicks to replace them. Since the chicks have no shelter, they are *ALL* eaten by racoons, He keeps trying, saying that this is the natural way for chickens and eventually he will hatch some smart ones that will learn to get away from the racoons. But domestic chickens are not wild animals and long ago lost the ability to live on their own. And chicks in the wild are defended by their mother, the ones he releases into his garden don’t have mothers. He is just killing chick after chick after chick, and ironically the racoons are getting smarter and smarter about how to catch them. The poor chicks don’t have a chance. I eat chicken, OK, so I’m not about it’s cruel to kill them for food. But being chased around in the dark to be eventually caught and eaten is a terrifiying and nasty way to die. The guy doesn’t even raise the chicks, he hatches them and gives them out to other people to raise until they are big enough to be fed to the racoons. We brought up one of those chicks, they are smart and sensitive creatures, I’m so sad that it got eaten. This really, really bothers me. Is this a situation animal services can do something about?